Product Description

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Lilly Corbett Still has grown to love her life as the small-town doctor of Skip Rock, a tiny coal community in the Kentucky mountains. Though her husband, Tern, is away for a few months at a mining job, Lilly keeps busy with her patients and her younger sister visiting for the summer.

Her hands full, Lilly turns to her good friend and neighbor, Armina, to help keep things in order. But when a mysterious chain of events leaves Armina bedridden and an orphaned baby on her doorstep, Lilly must trust in God and her resilient country neighbors to help her uncover the truth.

Publisher's Description

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Lilly Corbett Still has grown to love her life as the small-town doctor of Skip Rock, a tiny coal community in the Kentucky mountains. Though her husband, Tern, is away for a few months at a mining job, Lilly has her hands full with her patients and her younger sister visiting for the summer.

Lilly turns to her good friend and neighbor, Armina, to help keep things in orderuntil a mysterious chain of events leaves Armina bedridden and an abandoned baby on her doorstep. Lilly works to uncover the truth, unaware of what a mess shes found herself in until a break-in at her clinic puts her on high alert. As she struggles between what is right and what is safe, Lilly must discover the strength of her resilient country neighbors, her God, and herself.

Tattler's Branch was the first book I've read by Jan Watson, and I liked it. The story is interesting and the characters are well developed and believable. I will definitely be reading the first book in the series.

While I enjoyed this book, I did not enjoy is as much as the first of the series, Skip Rock Shallows. This book takes place a couple of years after the first and can be read independent of the first (there is enough background). The main character is still Dr. Lily Corbitt in a small coal mining town in Kentucky. The suspense centers around a baby that Lily's friend, Armina, has brought home and a possible crime that her friend witnesses but does not remember what she saw or the baby. There is also a man that is spying on the doctor as well.

There is more suspense in this book but the whole book is at a much slower pace and I found myself not being as engaged. (The first book, I did not want to put down most of the time.) I also felt that I wanted more detail. I still enjoyed the setting and the overall premise but it just didn't deliver as smoothly as the first.

Jan Watson writes such lovely characters, and such real-seeming scenes that I feel as if I'm right there among them. Some of the characters had surprising backstory, and the plot had a few twists. I wanted to hold my breath at times, waiting to see what was next. The story hints at events in previous books, but it isn't distracting and it is well explained so that this book is complete in itself, and it has a satisfying conclusion. I really like this clean, engaging story.